Cleaning and Up Keep

[CAPTAIN KOOLAID]

I like know how offened does everyone clean there weapons?
I clean mine every 2 to 3 weeks unless I happen to worked a ship, then I clean them right after I get home.

[JSam21]

I clean after everytime I go shooting. If I haven't shot I will clean it at least once a month with a good wipe down before everytime it goes in the holster.

[DeputyJ]

I clean my duty weapon, a Glock 17, after every range session (which is at least once a month). I clean my Glock 36 once a month as well because I sometimes carry it off duty.

Stay Safe

[Bill Warnock]

I still follow the Air Force model, clean on the day of shooting and three consecutive days thereafter. If I soon go to the range, say about two weeks, I take a different handgun. I practice with different handguns on different outings. In between times, the pellet handgun gets a workout.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[SecTrainer]

I still follow the Air Force model, clean on the day of shooting and three consecutive days thereafter. If I soon go to the range, say about two weeks, I take a different handgun. I practice with different handguns on different outings. In between times, the pellet handgun gets a workout.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

When I was in LE, I happened to wind up with two duty weapons when I moved from a department where you bought your own to a department that supplied the weapon. This gave me the luxury of following something very similar to your protocol, Bill, because I didn't have to carry the same weapon I'd just been using on the range that day.

[Bill Warnock]

SecTrainer, I kid you not, you should see the awful stuff I pull out of a barrel on the second day. The start of the third day shows fouling still present and at the end of the session, clean patches. The handgun goes back into active service after all of that.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[SecTrainer]

SecTrainer, I kid you not, you should see the awful stuff I pull out of a barrel on the second day. The start of the third day shows fouling still present and at the end of the session, clean patches. The handgun goes back into active service after all of that.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

I believe it, because I've seen it also. The only way I found to shorten the cycle was to leave a length of cotton soaked in Hoppe's #9 in the barrel overnight and then I could usually get clean patches on the second day. Sometimes I've had to use Sweets as well, but I prefer the milder solvent and it should suffice if cleaning is done religiously. I always use a bronze brush and soak it in mineral spirits after use to clean it.

The problem with a duty weapon is that you can't leave oil in the barrel as you can do with a firearm you only shoot occasionally(always removing the oil before shooting, of course), so I ran a patch or two with Hoppe's followed by a dry one through my duty weapon every night and you could always see a faint difference between them, proving that you only have to carry a weapon to get it dirty.

[Bill Warnock]

Thank you SecTrainer. I have felt like the lone voice crying out in the desert, your weapon gets dirty simply by carrying in a holster. Getting normal dirt in the atmosphere and lets not talk about springtime pollen! The unclean weapon is a violation of one of the "Ten Commandments of Security and Law Enforcement" and folks have been killed just because their weapon was dirty.
Enjoy the day,
Bill

[N. A. Corbier]

Not to mention its next to your body, and will attract moisture.

[Bill Warnock]

Not to mention its next to your body, and will attract moisture.

Thank you Nathan, good point!
There was a police officer I knew some 45-years ago who stated in his 18-years on the force he never had to fire his service revolver. He said he took pride in the fact he had never taken it out of its holster. That jurisdiction had range weapons the officers used to qualify with so he never fired the weapon he carried while on duty.
They never had a guard mount or inspection where the weapons were examined by their leadership.
One evening the officer had to draw his weapon and when he attempted to pull the trigger in a life and death situation, the hammer was frozen. In the era before protective armor, he only had his uniform coat and white shirt for protection. The shooter ran from the scene after shooting the officer. He died and when his "supervisor" tried to open the action, the cylinder release button on the S&W M&P did not budge.
The handgun was inoperable. The barrel was corroded. The revolver was soaked in solvent for two days before anything would move. When they removed the bullets they had to be cleaned and would not fire in the rangemaster's .38. The primers and powder were fouled. Needless to say the gun was destroyed in a nearby city forge.
That was a life altering experience for all of us. The leadership finally got around to shift inspections of both men and equipment. Many of the firearms had "green" matter in the bores. From that day forward, officers used their issued firearms when going to the range and were supervised when cleaning them. They closed the barn door after the horse trotted off!
A lot of the men had military police backgounds but forgot that training when leadership did not conduct guardmount, holding only shift briefings.
Thanks for jogging the memory Nathan.
Enjoy the day,
Bill